The Sanctuary
1 Chronicles 15:1–16; Genesis 1–2
Samuel Lesson #138
July 17, 2018
www.deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Our Father, we’re thankful we can come together this evening because of Your grace, that You have revealed Yourself to us. We understand who You are, and by understanding who You are—as those who are created in Your image and likeness—we understand who we are intended to be. Because of sin, we understand who we are. And because of Your revelation, we understand Your grace, and Your provision for us.
“Now Father, as we focus tonight, we are reminded that there are folks who aren’t here—some who are here regularly who are facing significant medical challenges. We’ve been praying for them in prayer meeting, and we pray for them. We pray for those who are facing possible death soon, and we just place her in Your hands, and that family in Your hands. Father, we continue to pray for them, that You would strengthen and encourage them.
“Father, we know that Your Word is a comfort to us. You are our Rock in the midst of difficulty.
“Father, we pray for us here, that those who need comfort will be comforted by Your Word, those who need strength will be strengthened by Your Word, and those who need to come to a greater understanding of the Truth will do so. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Slide 2
Open your Bibles with me to Genesis 1, because that’s where we will spend most of our time, reviewing some things from last week. Tonight, I am focused on this concept of the sanctuary, as we come to understand worship. In the Scripture, there’s an emphasis on an external sanctuary in the Old Testament. It is the place where God dwells, in that sanctuary.
So that is a physical location in the Old Testament, but in the Church Age, we are the sanctuary. God dwells within us, and so that makes us a sanctuary.
Then there’s a shift back, as we get into the Millennial Kingdom. There is the Millennial Temple, and following that there is no temple, except for Creation, as it’s described in Revelation 22.
So, we’re going to pull all of these things together, because I think that’s important for getting a biblical understanding of worship. What does the Bible teach about worship? Often, especially today, singing and music seem to be a focal point—when, as one writer I read today pointed out, that is just a very, very small part of what the Bible talks about as worship.
Slide 3
With that, I want to talk a little bit about this book I’ve been reading. I found out about this book last week. I’m not going to mention the book by name yet, because I haven’t read it all the way through.
What often happens when I do mention a book is some people run right out and get it. So, before I mention it, I want to make sure it is something that I would recommend.
As I have been reading the opening chapters, it seems fairly sound. It seems like the author is really setting up his topic very well. As I’ve been reading through this book, some of the things that he said at the opening, I wanted to bring up, and to give you a pop quiz to see what you think about some of the things that he says, in light of what we’ve been studying.
That’s important because we have to learn to think. And we have to learn to think critically, not just to regurgitate whatever we hear. In his introduction, he makes this statement regarding the conflict over worship:
Slide 4
“People who follow a more contemporary pattern of music often say that their method best appropriates who they are and is, therefore, more genuine.”
In the next sentence, he contrasts that with people who follow a more traditional pattern. “[They] will argue that their approach is more appropriate, because it instills a more reverent position and perspective.”
So, my question is, “What do you think about those statements, in light of what we’ve been studying? Anybody have any comments?”
[Woman in congregation responds]: “It’s not about who you are; it’s about who God is.”
Dr. Dean: Right, but notice he’s not talking about his view. He’s describing the two camps, as it were. So, do you think he has an accurate summary of the two views, or not?
I think he’s nailed it. He said on the one side, there are the people who think what makes worship good is what it does for them. It’s subjective; it focuses on their feelings, their emotions, and makes them feel closer to God.
On the other side—I like the way he expressed this—they would claim, according to him (I think this is a correct presentation), “ … it instills a more reverent position and perspective.” And that’s not just talking about music. It’s talking about other things that make up a corporate-worship setting.
When he says that, what is it saying about the more conservative side? It’s still about me, isn’t it? It’s still about me. And what I’ve pointed out, as we’ve gone through our study, is that—he’s accurate in setting it up that way (I’m not critiquing him on that)—but the way it is expressed so often is between two sides of the same coin. They don’t start with the Bible.
Slide 5
As he continues in his introduction, he says,
“The answer resides in defining two key presuppositions about where we derive our information.”
He’s talking about the assumptions we bring to the table, often unexamined. Those are our presuppositions. And how do we get our information? How do we define the values? Where do our values come from when we say, “This is biblical worship; this is not biblical worship?” They wouldn’t even put it that way. “This is worship; that’s not worship.”
He says,
“The first foundational concept is that the starting point for all of our decisions must be the biblical text and its proper interpretation.”
It starts with the Scripture. We don’t define worship; God defines worship. And we have to truly understand it as it is revealed in Scripture.
Then he says,
“The second indispensable conclusion is that proper communication of any practice and belief begins with accurate definitions.”
So, we have to make sure we define our terms, and that is especially true in any kind of a controversial area, whether you’re talking about worship in the Bible, or salvation in the Bible, or if you’re talking about politics, or whatever it may be.
I think it was Aristotle who said that you can save a thousand words by just having correct definitions, and making sure you’re talking about the same thing.
Slide 6
He then writes,
“In a world where feelings and personal autonomy have become the norm, submission to biblical authority must be the basis and standard by which worship is rescued from the realm of temporal feelings and empty words to that of truth that can transform and renew both the individual and the church universal.”
In this statement, he captures—very well said—that we live in a world where the criterion for many decisions is very subjective. It’s all about me, how it makes me feel, the pleasure it brings me, the joy that fills me, whether I feel comfortable with it—all of these different things—and whether it validates what I like. Tthat becomes an ultimate criterion in many areas, especially when it comes to something as subjective as music.
But that really isn’t the focal point. We need to think about the fact that there’s little emphasis in Scripture on music and hymns. There are, what? Exodus, the song of Miriam; Judges, the song of Deborah; 1 Samuel 2, the song of Hannah; there are a couple of other songs in Samuel.
But, of course, that’s when we hit this era of David, which is roughly 1000 BC. So, how long have there been human beings worshipping God? Well, if Creation was around 4000 BC, you’re talking 3,000 years without a real development of music. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, but as far as we know from biblical revelation, we don’t know what that was like.
I think there was a lot of music, and I would base that on the fact that when we look at pagan worship—we’ll talk a little about that later on—but when we look at pagan worship throughout that era, it reflects a corrupted view of original, biblical worship. A lot of the elements of worship are included in any kind of pagan worship.
So, he emphasizes this idea that personal autonomy becomes the norm. It’s what I like, what makes me feel good. It’s all about me, and not about what God says.
Going back to John 4:23, when Jesus is talking to the woman at the well, He says, “[A time will come when true worshippers will worship the Father] “ … in spirit and truth.” Truth becomes normative. And as Jesus prays in John 17:17 to the Father, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth.”
We have a definition there that we can take to form our understanding of worship. And then that rescues it from subjectivity, “… the realm of temporal feelings and empty words to that of truth that can transform and renew both the individual and the church universal.”
It is the Word of God, as Jesus also said about truth in His confrontation with the Pharisees in John 8:23, “You shall know the truth [that is, the Word of God], and the truth shall make you free” from subjectivity and the enslavement of the sin nature.
Slide 7
Then he goes on to say,
“One striking realization is that theology and worship are inextricably tied, because the foundation of both is the question, ‘Who is our God?’ ”
That’s a profound statement because in our contemporary, evangelical world there is a dearth of doctrinal teaching, there is a dearth of biblical teaching, of content coming out of the pulpits in our nation. People can go to many, many churches and never have their understanding of God challenged.
As far as they’re concerned—and this is true for Christians who think they are fairly mature, and have been around fairly good teaching churches a lot—we have a concept of God that often we project our ideas, and our values, and our feelings, and our perceptions onto, rather than letting the Bible completely define and structure that view.
So, theology looks at the question, “Who is God?” in defining God. And the only way we come to understand that is by going through the Scripture.
That’s the essence of worship, when people are focusing on the Lord. It is [a question of], “On whom are we focusing?” We’ve looked at several passages, such as Isaiah 6, in answering that question. So, we have to answer [those two] questions—both are focused on God. God is the focal point of biblical worship.
That brings up the point, as he says in his introduction, that we need to define our terms. Hhe had a couple of quoted definitions there. It’s interesting, I’d forgotten about this first one.
This was in a book that came out in 1982, and he makes a comment that one of the first books he read about worship was this particular book. That was probably one of the first complete books I, too, studied and worked through on worship.
Slide 8
That book gave this as a simple definition of worship: “An active response to God whereby we declare His worth.”
That was not an uncommon definition, if I remember. It was how many solid, conservative evangelicals defined worship. I remember one pastor that I studied under for a while, and he would quote, as I have, that the English word “worth” comes from the Old English word “worth-ship,” and it has to do with expressing the worthiness of God.
That’s true, but it doesn’t go very far—it’s not a broad enough definition to incorporate most of what we see in the Scripture.
In place of that definition, he offers this one, which I thought was interesting:
“… the relational phenomena …. ” That is academic gobbledygook. The better word that Allen Ross used in his definition, which I modified a little bit, is “fellowship.” It is that relationship with God, our fellowship with God.
Too often we think in somewhat of a superficial way about our fellowship. We have jargon that we use that we’re either “in” fellowship or “out” of fellowship, and often we lose sight of the fact that the term “fellowship” emphasizes a participatory relationship.
There’s a participation, there’s an enjoyment of that relationship. We can think about Adam and Eve in the Garden when they are first created. Even though God is the Creator God who is their teacher, their instructor, who is informing them, and they are the creature, there’s an enjoyment, a richness, a blessing in that relationship with God. That is what was lost in the Garden and what is progressively recovered through history, until we get to the new heavens and the new earth.
We have a positional fellowship in the Church Age, and this positional fellowship is our right relationship with God that will never change for eternity.
Then we have temporal fellowship, where when we sin, the enjoyment of the blessings of that relationship with God is cut off. We are missing out on enjoying that walk with Him every day. It is a personal walk, a personal relationship.
It is not something that becomes academic or depersonalized, neither is it an emotive, subjective feeling. That’s what he’s expressing here with this phrase “… the relational phenomena between the created and the Creator ….”
I like that, because what he’s emphasizing there is that man was created to have fellowship with God. I want to talk about that phrase a minute.
I’m not saying that man was created in order for God to have someone to have fellowship with. That’s a lie. That’s the Islamic god, who is a solitary deity who in eternity past has no one to love, no one to love him.
He’s neither the subject nor object of love. Therefore, if he creates, he does so in order to have an object to love. Therefore, he is dependent upon his creatures to be loving. That makes him less than God, by definition.
Let me state it another way. If Allah is eternally love, then Allah is eternally frustrated, because for eternity he doesn’t have anyone to love. Therefore, he must create in order to have an object for love to be who he is. That makes him dependent on his creature to love.
So, if he can’t be loved for eternity without being dependent on his creature to love, then if he is eternal, he must not be love. And that’s played out in the Koran and in the Hadith. You don’t have expressions that relate to Allah as being a god of love.
Whereas throughout the Bible, there are hundreds of statements emphasizing that God is love. That is an essential part of His attributes.
He creates man, though, uniquely. The angels are not created in His image and likeness. The animals are not created in His image and likeness. Only man is created in His image and likeness. And those words—the image and likeness—in the Hebrew are really loaded with meaning.
One of the senses [of the meaning] is that there is a counterpart between God and man. The idea of being an image emphasizes the fact that man is a representative of God. Man was created to be placed on this planet as a representative of God, and as a vicegerent.
Now that’s an important word. It’s not the word “vice-regent.” That’s a word often misused, and used in the wrong place, because you have the “r” and the “g” switching [places]. A vice-regent is like the Vice President.
The Vice President is the #2 guy, who—if something happens to the President—the Vice President steps in his place, like a chairman of the board and a vice-chairman. If the chairman is not there, then the vice-chairman takes his place.
But a vicegerent is someone who is a representative of the leader, of the suzerain, of the Lord, of the master. That’s the idea of the Hebrew word in Genesis 1—man is created not as #2 God, but to represent God to His Creation, to rule over it in God’s place.
This emphasizes this Creator/creature distinction, but that man is a unique creature because he is in the image and likeness of God. He is designed to represent God, but also, in the second term—the “likeness”—he is a finite representation of God in His immaterial makeup.
In his intellectual capacities, in his volitional capacities, in his ability to create and design things, and volitionally to respond to God’s love, man is a counterpart to God. He can freely return that love to God, and build and develop his relationship with God.
He goes on to say, in his definition,
“ … [It’s] between the created and the Creator, which find expression in both specific events … ” When God acts, man responds in gratitude and thankfulness, in praise—those are specific events. “ … and lifestyle commitments.”
What he means by that, I think, can be expressed better as trusting God on a daily basis. That communicates better—that’s what that means. As we grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, we learn to walk by faith—which is trusting God—day in and day out. That’s what is meant by “lifestyle commitments.”
On the next page, he has this as an expansion of that statement, which I thought brought out some important things:
“Worship as a reaction … ” I would use the word “response.” “ … from people in a lower position … ” One of the words for worship is the Hebrew word which means to bow down, to prostrate oneself, to submit oneself to someone in authority.
So, it emphasizes someone in a lower position expressing that relationship to God, who is in an exalted position, “… through specific actions and expressions ….”
Now, what are those “specific actions and expressions?” Well, right off the top of our heads, we can think of serving God; we can think of sacrifice in a post-Fall world; we think of giving thanks; we think of being cleansed of sin; we think of bringing sacrifices or an offering.
Those are “specific actions or expressions …” Of what? What’s that last phrase? “… a general worldview.”
He is countering both of those definitions he gave at the beginning, when he was expressing the two sides of the worship battles today. And he’s pointing out that the real issue is worldview—that worldview impacts all of these other things.
You either have a biblical worldview, or you don’t have a biblical worldview. And so, you have to understand all of these different components that make up worship within a biblical worldview.
If you think about just some of the things I mentioned already—I talked about serving God, I talked about obedience to God, I talked about cleansing, I talked about sacrifice (i.e., bringing sacrifice and offerings to God), I mentioned prayer, giving of thanks, singing hymns, all of those—which of those elements are not part of pagan worship? They’re all part of pagan worship, because pagan worship is a corrupted deterioration of what was pristine in the Garden of Eden.
So, you can have those same actions—we’re going to pray, we’re going to bring propitiatory sacrifices, we’re going to serve the deity, we’re going to sing, we’re going to have music, we’re going to have all these things—and those were very much a part of ancient Egyptian worship, ancient Babylonian worship, ancient Greek worship. They were all there.
It’s the worldview. It’s how it is understood. Is it theocentric, based on biblical revelation? Or is it man-centered, anthropocentric, based on one’s own personal idea of what a god should be like and what he would want for worship?
So, he makes a good statement there at the end. I just thought I would bring those up, because by thinking about them, and hearing some other people bring out these points, it gives us something to think about.
This is so controversial today—I mean not in our church, but it is when you get out into the broader area of Christianity. There are very few people, as I keep saying, who have really thought deeply and profoundly about it.
I’ve been thinking about this since the late 1970s, and reading about it from a lot of different viewpoints. I’ve been changing, and modifying, and maturing my understanding of these things each time I teach it. So that is crucial.
Slide 9
This is a working definition. I already changed a couple of terms today when I looked at it. Basically, it is based on a definition that Al Ross gives in his book, Recalling the Hope of Glory, which is his book on worship.
He says that biblical worship is:
[Well, he doesn’t say it this way. I’ve modified some of the terminology.]
I would say, “Biblical worship is a celebration ….”
Now, we understand what a celebration means. We often think of a celebration as what we see on New Year’s Eve, as having a big party. That’s not necessarily what celebration means. A celebration can also be a memorial service when someone has died. That’s more serious, that’s more sober, you don’t have party hats, and all these other things going on.
But it’s a reminder—it’s very serious—as you remember who that person was and his/her life. So, the word “celebration” is an important word, because it relates a lot to what public worship is.
It is being reminded of God’s grace and His favor, and celebrating them through the singing of songs that are biblically sound; and giving thanks to God; and in some cases, reading Scripture publicly; and in other cases, maybe rehearsing creeds, which are condensed, doctrinal statements that give people the opportunity to reaffirm what it is they believe in a public setting. It is a proclamation of the truth.
So, it’s a celebration of being in eternal fellowship—that’s that emphasis—enjoying that walk with God. It’s enjoying and developing that rapport with God—that rich, personal relationship, which is part of a conscientious and conscious dependence upon Him through life.
Now, that doesn’t happen right away. That is something we develop through 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of walking with the Lord. I’m going to tell you something, because the individual who told me this isn’t here, and I don’t want to embarrass him. But you all were paid a great compliment recently.
There was a young man who has been here a few times, and is probably going to become a part of the congregation, and he made the observation to me that, “I recognize that—in contrast to the church I’ve been going to, where there are a lot of young people—I realize as I look around your congregation, most people are much older than I am. But they have something that I want when I get to their age.”
I thought, “That’s pretty insightful for a young person.”
He said, “They have been in the Word for 20, 30, 40 years, and they have a stability and a confidence in their relationship with God that is evident. When I get to their age, I want that, and I’m not going to get it where I’m going to church.”
I thought that was a great compliment. And that shows a maturity, at that level, that you find very rarely today among people—anybody!—older or younger people who go to a church.
So, again, “The celebration of being in eternal fellowship [developing that personal walk] with the sovereign and holy triune God, by means of, first of all, the reverent adoration and spontaneous praise of God’s character and works.”
We come from more of, what I would call, a low-church tradition. High church is like going down to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where there is a lot of ritual and formality. Low church is much more informal. It’s not a derogatory term; it just classifies different styles of worship.
Often in a low-church setting, the emphasis is on spontaneity in prayers and other things. That can be okay, but it also can be very shallow and superficial, and not thought through. When we have a God who represents Himself as orderly, organized—[One who] thinks through completely everything that He creates—we should imitate that.
But what happens is you have a lot of denominations—and I’ve talked about this in my prayer series from many years ago—that have well-written prayers. But in those denominations, what happens is they become perfunctory. They’re just recited; they’re not explained.
They’re wonderful; they’re beautiful. If you have a good doctrinal framework, a biblical understanding, then they make sense. But if you’re not taught those things—and that’s what happens in a lot of churches with high liturgy—we’ve all heard the phrase to have “ritual without reality.”
That’s not the most precise way to express that, because a lot of the people who go through those rituals have a reality. What they have is ritual without understanding, without explanation.
Recently, in the last three or four months, I went to an Episcopal Church funeral, and they read through all the liturgy. Most people there were just reading words, and there’s never an explanation of what these things meant—where they came from in the Bible, why they say those things.
It just becomes words that really have no significance for people, because they don’t understand it. There’s been no teaching, or explanation, on those things. So, spontaneity can be good, but it can also be not so good.
Second, “The expressed commitment of trust and obedience ....” That’s what he’s talking about. [What the author calls] “a lifestyle of commitment” is really what Ross clearly articulates better (and I clarified it a little bit) as “a commitment of trust and obedience.”
“Trust and obey,” as the hymn says, “for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.” That just summarizes the Christian life. It’s the faith-rest drill. Trust God and do what He says to do, think what He says to think.
And then third,
“… the remembrance of God’s gracious work of salvation and spiritual growth through divinely prescribed ordinances.”
So, we have the Lord’s Table and baptism. All of this not only looks back to what God has done, but anticipates the fulfillment of His prophecies in the future.
As we’re going through this study—which has turned into something quite a bit lengthier and larger than I anticipated, but there’s just a tremendous amount that I’m learning and studying about this—all of it is leading us back to understanding 1 Chronicles 15.
Why does David develop all of this pomp and circumstance, and these choirs and this music, when he brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem? And what is the significance of that, as a background to understanding Church-Age worship?
The questions that may come up for some people are, “Why do we study Old Testament worship? Why is that so important?” Unfortunately, in a lot of churches today, pastors rarely talk about anything in the Old Testament other than maybe the Psalms, maybe Old Testament prophecies about Jesus related to Christmas or the Resurrection at Easter, or something like that.
But they don’t give people a framework for understanding the Old Testament. On the other hand, nearly everybody who heard Jesus, when He came and had three years of ministry, had a lot of the Old Testament memorized.
When Jesus mentioned certain phrases or ideas, His listeners were immediately categorizing them. They could think of an entire chapter right off the bat, and understand what He was talking about.
But today, we have people who, when they read these things, have no frame of reference in the Old Testament. Consequently, they completely misinterpret what is going on.
Slide 10
Here’s a quote from an author named James Muilenburg in his book The Way of Israel, who says this about Old Testament worship:
“It is not a flight into the dim unknown ….”
What is that? We have a word for that. What is that? Mysticism. You don’t know what it is; you just want to have this encounter with the “Other.” Transcendentalism would fit into that category.
“It is not a flight into the dim unknown, to timelessness ….”
You know, Buddhist nirvana.
“… or to a presence that disturbs and elates one in ecstasy.”
Where you have this existential encounter with the numinous. That is often what people think. Now they’ve become spiritual.
You hear that word “spiritual.” It’s taken on a whole new meaning throughout a lot of our culture. “So-and-so emphasizes his/her spiritual life.” Well, most of the time they’re just navel-gazing and giving rise to their own self-absorbed fantasies.
He says, that’s not what biblical worship is in the Old Testament. It’s totally different. These things characterize the worship of the pagans—the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Babylonians, and the Hittites.
He says, “What we see in the Old Testament …”
And I love the way he put this. It is:
“… a holy meeting …”
That means it’s a one-of-a-kind, unique meeting.
“… in which God grants forgiveness, comfort, and guidance, and where the worshipper responds in praise, often reciting God’s great redemptive acts.”
The only thing that he leaves out of that is the proclamation of God’s Word. That may be what he’s referring to by “… reciting God’s great redemptive acts.” It’s proclaiming them.
What is the first—or second thing, actually—that we see Abraham doing in Genesis 12? God calls him, tells him to go to a land He’s going to promise him—a land that He promises to give him—and he goes first to Haran. He doesn’t completely obey God.
After his father dies, then Abraham goes to the Promised Land. And what is the first thing he does? He goes to Sichem, to Shechem, and what does he do there? He builds an altar. And then what does he do? He calls on the name of the Lord.
What does that mean? It means he is proclaiming the God that he worships. He is calling upon God’s name, and he is worshipping Him, and he is declaring what God has done for him. Basically, by doing that, he is a public witness and testimony to the unique God that he is worshipping.
Slide 11
When we come into 1 Chronicles 15 and we talk about why is the study of Old Testament worship so important, the first reason is “… because we’re studying David’s response to the Ark and the presence of God with the Ark ….”
The top of the Ark has the cherubim, and the Psalms talk about God being enthroned above the cherubim. This represents His earthly throne.
So, when the Ark is in the holy of holies, there is this connection between the earthly throne of God on the Ark of the Covenant and Heaven. Can anybody go in there? No, only the high priest once a year.
But as the Ark is brought into Jerusalem, David is going move corporate worship into a totally new realm with the development of these levitical choirs, and orchestras, and all of the priestly guilds, and everything that gets developed.
David lays out the blueprint for that before he dies, because God has not allowed him to be the one to build the temple. Solomon is the one who executes it, when he becomes king.
I grabbed these two pictures because, in contrast to some of the pictures we have of David bringing the Ark into Jerusalem, these represent the tremendous pomp, and circumstance, and majesty of what is going on.
This is elevated if you watched The Crown series on PBS. You can get it on Netflix and other platforms. It is sort of the bio-epic of Elizabeth II’s reign. When you see the pictures, or you go back and watch newsreels of her coronation, or if you watched one of the royal weddings, and you see all of that pomp and circumstance—this is the level that David rises to, and what he develops at that time when they bring in the Ark.
Now, this is unique and distinct, because this is the presence of God. This isn’t what would be experienced if there were local sanctuaries—and we’ve discovered some, archaeologically, out in the highways and byways of smaller towns far away from Jerusalem. They didn’t have everything to develop this.
But this was where God placed His dwelling, there in the temple. So, these pictures depict that mentality—the elevation, and the respect, and the reverence for God.
Slide 12
Then the second reason we look at a study of Old Testament worship is that “… [T]he themes of worship that we find in New Testament worship …” are all developed from Genesis 2. When God creates Adam, and then the woman, and places them in the Garden, these themes start at that point.
You have an emphasis on the sanctuary of God, the place where God dwells. It is a holy place. The word for “sanctuary” in Hebrew is the word miqdash, from the Hebrew word qadosh. It’s [he spells] m-q-d-s-h.
That’s the participial form, and the noun is qodesh, which means to be holy, to be set apart, to be unique, or distinct, or one-of-a-kind. And that’s the sanctuary. It is a distinct, localized place for the dwelling of God. The sanctuary today is each individual believer’s body.
[The themes of worship]: you have sanctuary, you have separation from God, you have the need for sacrifice, you have the emphasis on substitutionary sacrifice, and you have the need for cleansing from sin to come into the presence of God.
In organized worship, you see that it includes prayer and thanksgiving, the singing of hymns, praise to God, seasonal rites of worship on the holy days, and then the priestly servants of God.
You have all of those elements today in a local church. But we have to understand that in terms of how they are distinctly represented within the Church-Age dispensation.
Slide 13
In the previous lesson, we started to examine the majesty and power of God as the Creator, expressed through His Creation. That fits that emphasis on understanding who God is, and His majesty, and His importance, His glory, His significance, and how that’s expressed as Creation.
I spent the last lesson talking about God as Creator, and the significance of that through the Old Testament. From this, what we want to do is move through the development of God’s Creation from the perfection of Eden, past the Fall, into the antediluvian period, into the period leading up to the revelation of the tabernacle on Mount Sinai, and then beyond that.
We’re not going to get bogged down in that. We’ve taught a lot about that, so we just need to put it together, in terms of understanding how all of that relates. Then, as we do this, we will examine a key theme of Scripture that traces the dwelling of God in His Creation.
To understand what it means that the Holy Spirit dwells inside you—that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit—to properly appreciate that and understand it, you have to understand this progression in the Old Testament.
Otherwise, you’re just hearing that the Holy Spirit is in you, but it’s hanging on nothing. We have to have this background. What it does is it opens things up to where we understand the significance of what’s happening in the Church Age.
But what we understand even more is there’s going to be this future dwelling of God on the earth in the millennial temple. That takes us to another level, before we get to the new heavens and new earth.
When I was gone in Israel, one of the things that Ray Mondragon taught—as he went through the history of man from a Jewish perspective, based on the Abrahamic Covenant—was the fact that we often get the idea that the ultimate in the dispensations is the Church Age.
But, as he pointed out, the Church Age isn’t called “the fullness of time.” It’s the Millennial Kingdom that’s “the fullness of time.” That is what everything is ultimately pointing to.
And so, we understand where we fit on that timeline and on the progression of God restoring Paradise, as I pointed out the last time. So, we have to understand this within its framework to give us a fuller understanding of this.
Slide 14
In the Old Testament, we started in Exodus as a turning point, as a lynchpin, as a fulcrum. In Exodus 25:8–9, God gives instruction to Moses to build a sanctuary, where He will dwell. This is the first time that God has dwelt on the earth since the destruction of Eden that happened with the Flood.
In Exodus 25:8– 9, God says,
“And let them make Me a sanctuary …”
That’s that word miqdash—a holy place, or a distinct place, where I dwell.
“… that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle …”
The word “tabernacle” is the word “mishkan,” from the Hebrew word “shakan,” meaning “a dwelling place.” So, it’s the pattern of the dwelling place, “… pattern of all its furnishings, just so shall you make it.”
Well, this pattern means that there is an archetype of what Moses is building. There is something it is patterned after. That is the heavenly temple. Now how do we know that? We know that because of what the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 8:1.
Slide 15
“Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister …”
This is referring to Jesus the High Priest, that He is a “… Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.”
So, there is a heavenly prototype of which the earthly tabernacle is a replica. Now, what’s going on here? That’s another one of those great themes that you’ll hear people talk about and not really develop. When I taught through Hebrews, I did not develop it very much. I did a lot on the tabernacle before, but not the heavenly tabernacle.
Slide 16
So, this reminds us of the quote from the book I read that one of the key things we have to understand “… is that theology and worship are inextricably tied …” to the question, “Who is God?” All of this relates to that center point.
When we go into the heavenly temple in Revelation 4 and 5, the centerpiece is the throne of God. That’s the centerpiece and the focal point of all angelic worship, which becomes the prototype for all creaturely worship. So, we understand the majesty of God by looking at those passages.
Slide 17
First of all, we understand that “The centrality of understanding the Majesty of God through His Creation is fundamental to understanding the essence of humanity.”
If we want to know who we are, if you want to know who human beings are—"the essence of humanity”—you can’t do it, biblically, unless you understand who God is. Why? Because we’re in the image and likeness of God.
So, to understand God, even though He is infinite and to a large degree beyond our comprehension, we can understand things about Him, in terms of what theologians call communicable attributes—that is, the attributes of God that He shares with man as His image.
So, we have to understand who God is. That’s going to be the focal point.
Slide 18
That’s the emphasis in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” So, there’s no distinction between men and women, in terms of their humanity, as a reflection—in the image and likeness of God.
Slide 19
This is why in the Psalms—when I read Psalm 8 the last time—the psalmist asked this question rhetorically in Psalm 8:4, “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels …” who are not in the image and likeness of God.
So, in terms of the hierarchy at this point, we are lower than the angels, but we have been “crowned with glory and honor,” because we’re in the image and likeness of God.
Slide 20
“You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet …”—that did not apply to the angels. We’re created to rule. So that’s that king aspect. But we’re also created to be priestly servants.
Slide 21
In Genesis 2:15, it says that “… God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to serve and watch over it.” Those words, as I pointed out last time, are words that are often used throughout Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy to express the function, the role, of the priest.
So, Adam and Eve are put in the Garden of Eden, which is the inner sanctum of the earth at that time. There are three areas on the earth. There’s the whole earth, then there’s a very special area called Eden, and then there’s a third area that is called the Garden that is East of Eden. This is a sanctuary of God, which is ruled over by priest-kings.
Slide 22
They are to rule—that’s the kingly function. They are to serve and to watch—which are words used of a priestly function. You see them used together in Deuteronomy 13:4 in relation to Israel. Israel was called to be what, according to Exodus 19:6? To be “a kingdom of priests.”
Their responsibility was to “… walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments ….”
Slide 23
There is no temple, because the whole of the new creation is the temple of God.
Slide 24
Now, as we wrap up, here’s what we’re going to look at. In Eden—and you can’t tell it from this picture—notice it’s very light. It is a depiction of the Garden of Eden when God is present with Adam and Eve.
You have these three areas I talked about. You have the earth, you have Eden, and then you have the Garden of Eden, which is East of Eden. That’s the sanctuary, the innermost area where Adam and Eve are placed. Then God comes and walks with them in the garden.
Slide 25
After the Fall—see, you have a shift. Notice how light the picture is in the upper left? There’s the picture—it’s much darker; the Fall has come. Now you have the earth, but that is where Adam and Eve are cast into. They’re now outside of the garden. They’re outside of Eden.
What is separating them from the Garden? God places cherubim—the plural there—it’s an army of cherubs that surround Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from coming back in.
Now when you go to the tabernacle and the temple, what you see is a replica to remind them of what was lost and God’s solution. You have the outer courtyard, where everyone can be. That is comparable to the earth at the time of Creation.
Then you have the holy place, which is divided into two areas: the holy place and the holy of holies. The holy place is comparable to Eden. The holy of holies is comparable to the Garden of Eden.
What is erected in both the tabernacle and the temple to keep people from going into the holy place and the holy of holies?
On the ceiling, there are these coverings of various fabrics and leather. What is embroidered into the fabrics on the inside, looking down? Nobody from the outside could see it, but if you’re inside and you looked up, what would you see? The embroidery of the cherubim.
If you go into the entry point here, there’s a gate here, an entryway, and there are cherubim that are woven into that. There are cherubim woven into the veil at the entry into the holy place. And then, at the inner sanctum, at the holy of holies, there are cherubs there.
What is that to remind them of? It’s that the cherubs are there to protect the sanctuary of God, just as God placed cherubs outside the Garden of Eden in order to prevent man, as a sinner, from going back into the sanctuary of God.
It also reminded them that the only way you can enter the sanctuary of God, past the guards, as it were, is through a sacrifice and through the cleansing of sin. That’s why at Jesus’ death the veil is torn, because now there is cleansing, and that way is open into the inner sanctum.
Slide 26
So, here’s another artist’s depiction of this. Here you have the presence of God in Eden, where there’s a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And there’s something comparable to both of those in the tabernacle—we’ll talk about that next time.
There’s the flaming sword, and these cherubs that block the entry into the Garden.
Slide 27
Here is a depiction of it in the holy place and the holy of holies. You have the cherubs, who are embroidered into the outer veil and the inner veil, to represent that division. Man cannot go in past the cherubs.
Now, next time we’ll do a comparison of these three: the Garden of Eden, the tabernacle, and the temple.
Slide 28
In the Garden of Eden, you had the river of life; you had cherubim; you had gold and precious gems; you had trees; you had the image of God, which is Adam and Eve; and a place of rest.
You’re going to have something comparable, as a reminder, in both the tabernacle and the temple. And all of this will become focused in terms of worship.
Now, the last thing I mentioned last time is that God places Adam and Eve into the Garden. The word that is translated as “placed,” there in Genesis 2:15—that He put him in the Garden of Eden—is the word nuach.
It’s not the word that’s used earlier, but it has this meaning of rest. It’s related to the name of Noah. God is going to give man rest from the judgment through Noah. So, it’s a place of rest.
Slide 29
This has great meaning for the future resolution of sin. Jesus uses this same terminology when He says, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
That is often used as a salvation verse, but it’s not a salvation context. He’s talking about disciples—believers who will become dependent upon Jesus as their source of rest in life.
Slide 30
This idea gets picked up and developed in Hebrews 4:9–10, where the writer of Hebrews is talking about the Sabbath rest for the Exodus generation: “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”
God rests on the seventh day, but that doesn’t mean He stops. It is a relaxation. That becomes a pattern for the completed process.
The Millennial Kingdom becomes that rest for us, and ultimately, in the new heavens and new earth. But I think this passage is talking about the Millennial Kingdom.
Slide 31
Psalm 132:13–14 reads, “For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place: This is My resting place forever; …” on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem “… Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
That’s the same word for rest. This connects all the dots. When Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden, as a place of rest, this is when they can worship God by keeping His commandments and walking with Him.
This is where we have rest. It is when we are worshipping God biblically. It comes in our response to the proclamation, the teaching, and the instruction of God’s Word.
So, that gives us a much fuller understanding of this. Next time, we will come back and try to summarize the Old Testament, fill out that chart with the comparison, and see how all of these things develop and set the stage for a New Testament spirituality.
Closing Prayer
“Father, thank You for this opportunity to study these things and to reflect upon these patterns in Your Word that You have set up for a very specific purpose—to teach us about who You are and about how we are to respond to You and to worship You.
“Father, we pray that You would help us to understand these things, to be conscious and conscientious about the fact that our whole lives are to serve You. Therefore, it is an act of worship to You.
“And as many times as we fail, You always provide a way for us to recover and to keep moving forward, growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we can begin to approach an understanding of what it means to really, truly glorify You in our lives. This is not something superficial. It’s not something that is just reflected in trite sayings, but it is a bedrock reality in our souls that only comes through years of spiritual growth. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”
